If you own an Ikea Vindriktning (a very inexpensive PM2.5 air quality monitor), this board allows you to take over its functionality and add wireless capability! After you’ve disassembled your Vindriktning, you need to salvage a few parts from the original PCB, and then replace the entire thing with the new board from seller Realtime’s Oddities.
Because this build requires salvaging parts from a populated board, you’ll want to have a decent amount of soldering experience under your belt, and a hot air station for desoldering SMD parts. Once you’ve got it installed though, it’s an ESP8266-based system so interfacing with just about any remote software is possible. ESPHome is easy to configure, and with some tweaking, it shouldn’t be too hard to get it working with Home Assistant or any remote logging software you want to use.
A neat feature of this board is the ability to add more sensors. With a few I2C headers exposed, you could add just about any sensor type you want. With a BME280 or similar, you could easily add humidity and temperature for a more complete picture of air quality. Or add one of the analog MQ-x sensors to detect carbon monoxide, natural gas, smoke, or a range of other airborne pollutants. Fitting all this into an existing stylish Ikea case is a great way to hide some sensors in your home without affecting the look of your space!
